Debt-free Kennedy ponders another run at Liberal leadership

Former Liberal leadership contender Gerard Kennedy has paid off the last of his 2006 campaign debts, clearing the way for him to run for the party’s top job in 2013 — and he might be game.

“One doesn’t necessarily lead to the other. But it does mean I’m not encumbered in any way, shape, or form,” Kennedy told iPolitics. “It’s probably a nice corollary, I suppose.”

The Liberal party will pick a permanent leader sometime between March 1 and June 30, 2013. The guidelines have yet to be determined, but the party may choose to bar candidates who still carry previous leadership debt. If so, it would have a significant impact on the race.

Former Willowdale MP Martha Hall Findlay, widely viewed as another possible 2013 contender, is still paying off her 2006 leadership debt. The outstanding amount is now down to $85,000, according to her campaign’s financial agent, Maneesh Mehta.

Hall Findlay said she is pleased with the progress her team is making, including an upcoming fundraising event with Paul Martin in May. “Needless to say, given upcoming events in the Liberal party, it’s better for us to get this done as quickly as possible,” she said.

Hall Findlay has not yet decided whether to throw her hat in the ring in 2013, but, “I am thinking about it.” She said people want to see full participation in this race, and that it would be a mistake for the party to deny someone’s candidacy on debt grounds.

“If the party wanted to say that, I would be very interested to see what they would say about Bob Rae, given certain other commitments.”

Hall Findlay and Kennedy cited the same key reasons why they have had a tough time paying off their old campaign expenses. One is that campaign donors were subject to a lifetime donation cap of $1,100 under rules imposed by the Conservative government. That rule will revert back to being an annual cap under new political financing legislation, now before the House of Commons. Another reason is that during the years of minority government, with the constant threat of an election, the party had to come first for fundraising.

Kennedy said paying off his debt was a challenge, but it also afforded his team the chance to engage more people in the political process. Most Liberals had maxed out what they could give, which also meant broadening their outreach. He called it “a group effort.”

“The truism is that the later it is, the harder it is to raise,” Kennedy said. “The last $75,000 was probably the easiest money we raised. I think probably there’s a lot of determined Liberals out there. I think they’d like to see several of us, or many of us, be free to contribute in the future.”

The Kennedy campaign’s final dollars were raised by the end of 2011, and the team is now waiting for Elections Canada to give them the all-clear.

“We are dealing with the regulatory follow-up to close out the matter,” said Ken Rosenberg, the campaign’s financial agent.

Kennedy described paying off the final tab as “a bit of a weight lifted.”

Though he got out of the red only recently, Kennedy allowed it wouldn’t be totally out of character for him to get back on the campaign trail. He was most recently the MP for Parkdale-High Park — he was defeated in last May’s election by NDP leadership hopeful Peggy Nash — but he also ran for the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party in 1996, narrowly losing to Dalton McGuinty on the final ballot.

“I run for leadership every so often, whether I need it or not,” he laughed. “I haven’t made any decisions.”